Legendary Middle East historian Bernard Lewis penned an oped today in the Wall Street Journal describes the inadequacies of the Israeli electoral process. Lewis commends the democracy as, in and of itself, an accomplishment due to the failures of this type of system in the rest of the region. However, he still encourages electoral reform. He asserts that due to the electorate voting for a party, not a particular politician, corruption looms while accountability falters. In Israel, parties decide a list of candidates and who will enter the Knesset based on the vote percentage received. By permitting Israelis to vote for single candidates, Lewis claims that the system could improve. He notes:
“In the Israeli system, the member is only responsible to the party leadership or, worse still, to the party bureaucracy. His success or failure in the election depends less on the will of the electorate than on the place assigned to him in the party list. This is not a healthy system, and it can only encourage the corruption about which so many Israelis complain today. The Knesset would improve dramatically in quality and experience if its members, including the members of the government, were obliged to fight and win their own election and re-election by the electorate.”
An oped in Real Clear Politics describes reaction towards recent accusations of IDF misconduct in the Gaza Strip. While the world and internal Israeli critics condemned Israel for human rights violations, the author claims that Hamas neglects humane considerations and actively targets civilians. Hamas’ actions as well as the allegations, if true, of misconduct by the IDF are both inhuman and worthy of international condemnation. However, Israel should not measure its morality based on the the actions of Hamas; most Israelis hope that their government is better than that.
In contrast, an oped in the San Francisco Chronicle contemns Israel for a history of human rights violations and accuses the world of turning a blind eye to the nation. The author writes:
“We must break that habit now, or see international law perverted in ways that can harm us all. Our government has already been seduced to follow, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Israel’s example of targeted killings. This policy alienates civilians, innocently killed and wounded in these crude strikes, and deepens the determination of enemies to harm us by any means possible.
We do not want civilian police in the United States to be bombed, nor to have anyone “knock on our roofs.” For our own sakes and for the world’s, Israel’s impunity must end.”
